I went to Bellmore, New York - on Long Island - for a weekend of events. What a fantastic group, and festival. I was really impressed. I appreciated the opportunity that they gave me to talk about the baseball script, too. All in all, it was a fun and productive trip.
"Until the End of the Ninth" is inspired by the true story of the 1946 Spokane Indians' minor league baseball team that died in a bus crash midway through that season. Nine of the 16 men on the bus died. Eight of the nine who died had served in World War II. It is the worst ever professional sports accident in U.S. history. They died as a team - 9 - the number of players on the field at a time. It was a terrible tragedy and one that moved me greatly when I learned of it. I wanted to imagine that their spirits could have lived on, so I wrote a novel (and screenplay) as if they did. It is heartwarming to have LIIFE acknowledge the work but, more importantly, the story of these 1946 men.
